Chapter 110#
The roar of heavy machinery ground in from beyond the estate walls. Treads crushed over the rain-soaked flagstones, churning standing water into murky waves of mud. The rain showed no sign of stopping—it only poured harder, the sky hanging so low it seemed to be pressing the entire estate into the earth.
Ji Yang stood at the foot of the steps. Rainwater trickled down the back of his neck; his shirt clung to his back, tracing the thin outline of his shoulder blades. Ji Mingyue’s umbrella had long since been blown inside out by the wind. She simply put it away and stood half a step from him, getting drenched alongside him.
“Step back a little.” Ji Yang turned his head to look at her, his voice thinned to fragments by the rain.
Ji Mingyue shook her head, her stubbornness laced with deep shame. She wrestled the inverted canopy back into shape with all her might. “I’ll stay with you.”
Ji Yang truly had no energy left to spare for her at that moment, so he didn’t try to persuade her again.
The instant the mechanical arm smashed through the front entrance of the main building, the sound was muffled—like something enormous cracking in his chest. The marble floor of the foyer had taken the Ji family half a year to lay years ago. Single slabs imported from Italy; not a single crack had formed on them in decades. The mechanical arm reached in. Steel teeth bit down. The first strike left only a faint pale mark.
The second strike cracked the stone.
The third strike pried the entire slab up from its center, raising a plume of grey dust.
“Slow down.” The supervisor stood beside and slightly behind the machine, raising a hand to the operator. “Clear the surface layer first.”
Jiang Lei had arrived at some unknown time, wrapped in a rain slicker, carrying a high-precision detection instrument. Working with the survey team, he made a circuit of the foyer, shook his head at the supervisor, and moved deeper inside.
Ji Yang stood in the doorway. Water at his feet cascaded step by step down the stairs, pooling into the shallow depression he had trampled out. He could feel his right leg throbbing dully—not the sharp phantom pain, but more like a wad of wet cotton stuffed between the bones, heavy and dragging downward.
The second round of work was even slower than the first, almost scraping the surface off layer by layer. The marble was lifted away in large sheets, revealing the original structural layers beneath—blue brick, mortar, an old-fashioned load-bearing framework. That was the Ji family’s foundation from before their rise to fortune. When the estate had been renovated, they hadn’t torn it out entirely—they’d simply built the current structure directly on top.
“Stop,” the person in front ordered.
The operator halted immediately.
“The load-bearing walls are double-layered brick with a moisture barrier in between.”
“A normal foundation doesn’t need a dedicated moisture barrier ring on the interior. There are signs of reinforcement here.”
The team leader made a decisive call. “Get people over here. Map out this entire ring first.”
Once the specialist detection team entered, progress accelerated considerably. In under forty minutes, the area to the right of the foyer had been cleared, the test pit forming a neat rectangle. The upper strata were blue brick. Below that, rammed earth. Below that—
The probe rod hit a hard surface.
Three hours after the main building’s foundation was punctured through, the excavation machinery came to a complete stop.
The operator shut off the engine. Every person on site surged forward, leaning over to peer down, then froze in unison.
Below a modest entrance, under the wash of work lights, an expanded space opened up—countless fine motes of dust drifting through the air.
A heavy coffin, thick with layers of dust from years spent underground, was wrapped in iron chains three fingers thick, anchored into the load-bearing pillars of the main building’s foundation from four directions, suspended in midair—like some malevolent sacrificial curse.
The forensic examiner crouched beside the stone slab for a long time, then stood and shook her head. “This will require people going down and a hoist to have any chance of bringing it up.”
The forensic examiner was a woman.
As she spoke, she couldn’t bring herself to look at Ji Yang. Or perhaps she spoke specifically to explain and comfort him: “Old sayings go that chains securing a coffin ward off evil spirits, not people. In our line of work, you see enough of this. The dead are dead—some of these superstitious rituals are nothing more than the living feeling guilty.”
Ji Yang was draped in an oversized coat that wasn’t his own. Because the process had been so long and grueling, his complexion was nearly translucent.
Yet he held himself together without a trace of it showing. His eyes were calm as he shook his head. “I understand. Don’t worry about me. Proceed.”
With his word, the tension in the staff on site eased noticeably.
Just as they were about to begin, Nie Xu arrived from the command center at the rear, bringing people with him.
“I’ll go,” he said.
“You’re going down?” A police officer spotted him and asked.
Nie Xu gave a quiet confirmation.
He handed his rope descent equipment to someone beside him, then turned to face Ji Yang, adjusting the coat draped over his shoulders. “Leave the rest to me. Don’t worry.”
Ji Yang looked up into his eyes. After a long moment, he answered with a soft, quiet “mm.”
Ji Yang watched Nie Xu fasten his carabiner and disappear into the opening with his team.
An hour passed. Mud water seeped down the pit walls.
From below came a steady, measured shout: “Heave!”
The steel cable trembled faintly, then snapped taut.
The pulley groaned into motion, ascending slowly. Ji Yang couldn’t see the full coffin—what emerged first was a corner bound in iron chains, gleaming with an aged black under the grey-white light of dawn. Rust from the chains had seeped into the wood like brands pressed into its grain.
Then Ji Yang saw Nie Xu.
Suspended on the cable, palms facing down, five fingers resting lightly on the right side of the coffin lid.
Everyone on site fell silent.
That was the position of the filial son bearing the casket. The eldest son stood on the right, supporting without applying force. After the coffin was lowered, he didn’t release his grip right away. Instead, he ran both hands from the center of the lid outward—one hand left, one hand right—completing the final rite of bearing the casket, walking her through the last of this journey. Then he stepped back three paces, stood straight before the coffin, and offered a slight bow.
All the public officials stood in unified silence. The torrential rain had not stopped day and night, making this moment all the more solemn and reverent.
At last, a sliver of white broke along the distant horizon.
Ji Yang said to her in his heart: Look, the sky is clearing.
The Blue Ocean Project investigation team, the forensic center, the research institute, and multiple other agencies launched simultaneously at six in the morning.
Ji Yang turned and went to find Ji Yansong once more.
Ji Yansong had been temporarily settled in a side room adjacent to the main building, to be transferred once daylight came. The room had originally been quarters for the servants on duty—an old sofa, a chair, a window facing the dry landscape garden in the backyard. After the stretcher was carried in, it was set beside the sofa. Two attendants stood guard outside the door.
When Ji Yang pushed the door open, Ji Yansong was awake.
He was strapped to the stretcher, half his body immobile, his head turned toward the window. At the sound of the door, his gaze shifted over, found Ji Yang, and his pupils contracted sharply—then returned to calm.
On the sofa beside him sat Ji Changshou, curled up in handcuffs.
Forty-eight hours of relentless interrogation, the confrontation and grilling on the estate grounds—these had utterly broken this man. At the sound, he didn’t even dare raise his head, pressing himself further into the corner.
The attendant stood up.
“It’s fine. You don’t need to leave,” Ji Yang said.
The attendant glanced at Ji Yansong, then at Ji Yang. After a second’s hesitation, he lowered his head and stepped out—even thoughtfully closing the door behind him with a soft click.
In the side room, only the monitor’s steady beeping and the wind outside remained. Ji Yang didn’t take the chair. He walked to Ji Yansong’s stretcher, stopped, and looked down at him.
“What did she exchange with you back then?” Ji Yang cut straight to the point.
Ji Yansong’s gaze drifted from Ji Yang’s face to the bare lightbulb on the ceiling. Years of dust coated the bulb, and the light it cast was a murky yellow.
His voice was slurred, a murmuring self-conversation: “If I’d known this day would come, I should have killed you. I should have killed you back then.”
“Is that so?” Ji Yang’s voice was flat, devoid of emotion. “What a pity.”
Ji Yansong looked at him again. There was no remorse or regret in his eyes—only a deep, bitter frustration at his own miscalculation, at an outcome running counter to every expectation. Maggots had long since bored through his flesh and bone; all that was left for the outside world was a pile of rotting meat that still breathed.
Ji Yang studied his expression. “Not going to talk?”
“Lost is lost. There’s nothing to say.” Ji Yansong exhaled a turbid breath, still holding himself with that last shred of dignity—dignity as the former patriarch of the Ji family.
Ji Yang nodded, walked over to the sofa, and faced the disheveled middle-aged man whose chin was sprouting a ragged beard. “You talk.”
“I don’t know!” Ji Changshou’s voice cracked with agitation. “How would I know what she said to the old man?! Everyone said she was a genius—said she had the most brilliant mind and the best research skills. In my eyes, she was just a madwoman! A lunatic!”
“Shut up!” Ji Yansong on the stretcher coughed violently twice, his face turning purple-red from the strain, trying to stop him.
“Dad!” Ji Changshou suddenly broke. “Why won’t you let me speak? Twenty years ago you made me shut up too! That experiment she talked about—it never existed!”
Ji Yansong: “You fool! I told you to shut your mouth!”
Ji Changshou could hold it in no longer. Everything poured out at once: “If it weren’t for her, how would the Ji family have been shackled by the Chamber of Commerce for all these years, forced to scrub ourselves clean and go straight? If the experiment she described really existed, we tested on her for so long—how could we have discovered nothing?!”
Ji Yang’s leg pain had begun triggering other cascading effects.
His temples throbbed as though driven with awls, leaving his lips drained of all color, his face cold enough to drip.
Looking at Ji Yansong, who was breathing heavily, and at Ji Changshou, who had paused only briefly, Ji Yang spoke slowly: “So she grew weaker day by day because you kept running experiments on her. Is that it?”
“She brought it on herself!” Ji Changshou’s eyes blazed with hatred. “She told me—the experimental data was edited into her and your biological genetic code. Even if she died, the data could only be preserved as long as you were alive.” Ji Changshou stared at Ji Yang as though at an enemy, a cold laugh escaping him. “Otherwise, why do you think you’re alive?”
In Ji Changshou’s mind, Yu Fei had sacrificed everything—spending years as bait—to unearth the secrets of the Ji family and the Blue Ocean Project.
Ji Yang’s very existence was his shame.
No matter how much of a madwoman Yu Fei seemed to Ji Changshou, a madwoman who became a mother would still hesitate.
She used Ji Changshou’s infidelity as a pretext to propose separation, then went deep into the heart of the Blue Ocean Project’s experimental grounds.
At the same time, her identity was exposed.
The cooperation between the Ji and Nie families was beginning to fracture—it was precisely because Nie Yuanshan and his wife had uncovered evidence of the Ji family’s smuggling and trafficking that the relationship collapsed. Yu Fei entrusted the child to her close friend Shen Yueqing, hoping he could safely return to his maternal family during the dangerous period when her identity was compromised.
Unfortunately, things did not go as planned.
She traded herself—the Blue Ocean Project’s most central experimental subject—for Ji Yang’s survival.
She turned herself into a test subject.
Did this so-called experiment really exist?
Ji Yansong seemed to believe it without doubt—and that was precisely because, if the experiment succeeded, it could yield enormous profits and a thriving underground market. That was the fundamental reason the Blue Ocean Project existed at all.
But Ji Yang had a feeling. This was not Yu Fei’s true objective.
Just as he’d predicted, ten minutes later he received a message from Yu Qin. Acting as a family member and key witness, Yu Qin had personally participated in the subsequent cross-referencing of information. There was now a preliminary conclusion: the forensic team had found traces of a biological chip in the natural blind spot at the base of the skull, matching the model number Yu Fei had left behind years ago. Yu Qin said the conclusion still required verification, but currently the chip’s production batch matched the critical documents Yu Fei had taken from the Blue Ocean Project. The exact time of implantation still needed confirmation.
Ji Yang zoomed in on the tiny chip image and confirmed it was identical to the one scanned from the back of his neck in his previous life—except he did not tell Yu Qin this. So the chip that had been removed from his body hadn’t disappeared at all. It had been hidden more deeply.
The so-called editing of experimental data into biological genes—true or not—was more like a deliberate misdirection.
She had deliberately led the Ji family to believe the data, along with the core experimental technology, was encoded in her genes. Her abilities made it impossible for them to doubt it. But in truth, what she was protecting was something far more surface-level—something no one would ever think to look for.
Ji Yang thrust his phone right in front of Ji Yansong’s face.
“See it clearly now?” Ji Yang’s voice was soft. “Fund flows. Complete list of everyone involved. Institutions that participated. Copies of past experimental records… All this time, you worshipped her as an omnipotent goddess, while wishing you could grind her into the dirt. Driven by your frustrated ambitions, you buried her beneath the building, spared her son’s life, and made her son live day after day right above her. But not one of you ever stopped to think—what was she truly waiting for in all of this?”
It was the original conviction of a research scientist.
It was fairness and justice in this world.
It was the day the truth would see the light again. It was the net of heaven—vast and inescapable—coming to uproot this evil from its very source.
Ji Yansong’s eyes went wide and fixed. Ji Changshou suddenly lunged off the sofa, reaching for Ji Yang’s phone.
He roared: “I knew it! I knew she was lying! That bitch! She—Ah!”
Ji Yang grabbed the chair and slammed it into him. The chair shattered instantly into pieces.
Ji Yang cast one last cold look at Ji Changshou, who was crouched on the ground clutching his head. Then he turned, walked to the door, and pulled it open.
The door swung wide on both sides. Faint post-rain light poured in all at once.
In the distance, the main building began to collapse from the left, brought down by the heavy machinery.
A tremendous tremor shook the ground. Against the sound, and the rigid, gasping wheezes of Ji Yansong behind him, Ji Yang stepped forward through the doorway.
He descended the steps, watching the figures gradually emerge from the great clouds of dust billowing outward.
Ji Yang reached out his hand. And then, in the instant Nie Xu’s eyes snapped taut and his figure came running toward him, the world went black—and Ji Yang collapsed backward, his body going soft.